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DISPATCHESabOUT TOwn—amsTErDam

72— DESTINASIAN.com — OCTObEr/nOvEmbEr 2014

DUTCHTOUCH

shop talk From left: Alexander Six at his concept store and coffee bar Six & Sons; a detail

from microbrewery Butcher’s Tears.

One of Europe’s most walkablecities is anything but pedestrian

these days, with a fresh crop of young entrepreneurs

reenergizing the local scene.From a garage-turned-micro-

brewery to a single-cookie bakery, here are four standouts

BY BrIAN SpENcEr

t the end of a brick road

running through an

industrial area in Ams-

terdam’s Oud-Zuid, Eric

Nordin shuffles into a

former garage building.

He’s dressed all in black

—black sweatshirt, black

jeans, black nose ring—standing a stark con-

trast to the interior of the nondescript garage.

Swathed in white tiles and white brickwork,

the space is clean, clinical, like an exhibition-

less art gallery or hospital operating room.

“It’s a bit different than most places,”

Nordin says. “I didn’t know what to expect,

and I actually don’t know how people find their

way here. It attracts lots of neighbors, though,

which is cool.” He’d worked until 3 a.m. that

day; his friends call him The Butcher.

There’s something different about Ams-

terdam these days. At first loving glance

little seems changed in the Netherlands’

handsome capital, a deceptively small city of

fewer than 800,000. Through rain and snow,

locals still collectively pedal upwards of two

million kilometers a day, mostly on classic

Dutch roadsters whose wheels rattle and

chain-locks clatter on the zigzagging brick

A

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DISPATCHESabOUT TOwn—amsTErDam

paths that line splendid 17th-century canals.

The timeless chorus of church bells still

echoes across the canal belt, mingling with the

maniac ticking of crosswalk signals and sooth-

ing whir of trams dutifully gliding through

vibrant pedestrian streets. Amsterdam is still

Amsterdam: moderate, meticulously organ-

ized, quieter than you might think, and emi-

nently cool.

Yet just below the surface, a wave of youth-

ful entrepreneurs are reshaping the city’s

identity one new bar, restaurant, and shop at

a time. Nordin is one of them, a lanky, long-

haired Swede with a shaggy beard who plays

drums in a “strangely progressive dark metal”

band called Våld. It was along with fellow

bandmate Felicia von Zweigbergk and busi-

ness partner Herbert Nelissen that he started

the microbrewery-cum-outsider-art-space

called Butcher’s Tears. Heineken this is not.

Opened in late 2013, a year in which some

60 new breweries were launched across the

Netherlands, Butcher’s Tears’ blinding-white

proeflokaal—tasting room—is a marvel of

stripped-down simplicity. picnic table–style

seating designed by local craftsman Jair

Straschnow is fashioned from metal and bam-

boo, while a menu of unfiltered, unpasteurized

tastemakers Clockwise from left: Baker Vera vanStapele in front of her namesake cookie shop; friedchicken with waffles, a poached egg, and maple syrup,at Staring at Jacob; brewmaster Eric Nordin behindthe taps in the tasting room at Butcher’s Tears.

Jacob, a cozy neighborhood restaurant in up-

and-coming Oud-West that takes its name

from its location on the corner of Staring-

straat and Jacob van Lennepkade streets. It

debuted last August as the second collabora-

tion between chefs Anthony Joseph and Noah

Tucker, who for the past three years have run

the kitchen at acclaimed Amsterdam bistro

restaurant Fraîche.

The pair keeps things simple at Staring at

Jacob, where a small seasonal menu features

gourmet twists on classic brunch standards.

beers is scrawled in erasable marker on walls

otherwise adorned only with arm lamps and

von Zweigbergk’s abstract sketches. Behind

the bar is a hidden room for art shows, live

music, and monthly photo-book swaps.

Nordin is one of just a handful of Dutch

brewmasters who make their own beers on-

site. Until recently, when Butcher’s Tears

installed its own brewing equipment, all of its

beers were concocted at host breweries in Bel-

gium. “We have brewed a lot of Belgian-style

beers, saisons, and some pale ales, which all

work with the hard water in Belgium,” he says.

“But I think it’s going to be a lot more exper-

imental here. Ideally it will be an extension of

my home brewing, when I just do stuff because

I feel like it. I think the real Butcher’s Tears

has yet to come.”

Butcher’s Tears distributes to more than

100 bars, restaurants, and bottle shops across

the country and in Europe. One of them is

buzzy beer-and-brunch hot spot Staring at

The Tree Hugger, for example, adds Yorkshire

pudding, braised kale, and ratatouille to the

greasy-spoon mix of home fries and cheese

eggs; batter for fish and chips is made with a

roasted stout from another new Amsterdam

microbrewery, Oedipus Brewing.

“We thought we could keep it reasonable

if we didn’t overcomplicate the standards

that bring people out for brunch,” says Turner,

a transplanted New Yorker whose résumé

includes a stint at San Francisco’s Michelin-

starred Michael Mina restaurant. “As chefs we

approached it as sort of a dinner restaurant in

a weird way, by having a main menu instead

just a sling fest where you can order, you know,

as many eggs as you want however you want

them.”

Turner says the restaurant’s design was in

part inspired by the Brooklyn-style eateries

back home. Furnishings and flooring are

made from reclaimed wood, a large chalkboard

menu hangs on exposed brick, and a custom

From taxidermied animals and gum-ball machines to wearable sleepingbags, archery supplies, and sophisticated lingerie, Six & Sons isa winsome collage of vintage andhandcrafted goods presented likepop-up art installations

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DISPATCHESabOUT TOwn—amsTErDam

ambrosial mix of dark, delicately crisped Val-

rhona chocolate dough that shrouds magma

of creamy white chocolate in the middle. Van

Stapele calls it “the world’s tastiest chocolate

cookie,” and it’s hard to disagree. She’s already

baking more than 350 cookies during busy

days, with some orders packaged in cute,

handcrafted gift boxes shaped like Amster-

dam’s old canal houses.

Van Stapele also gutted and renovated

the shop herself. The result, with its handmade

wooden appointments, vintage crystal chan-

deliers, lazy-Sunday-afternoon jazz sound-

track, and toasty scent of baking cookies, is the

convivial embodiment of gezelligheid, a Dutch

term for what you might translate as a state

of complete coziness. And in Amsterdam, be

it at home or around town, gezelligheid is a

guiding principle—that much will never

change.

wallpaper installation by Israeli-born artist

Itamar Gilboa plasters the wall behind the

bar. “I just wanted it to feel like a neighbor-

hood spot,” he explains. “comfortable and easy

and accessible, not just for customers but for

myself, too.”

Back amid the city’s historic canals, former

film and television art director Alexander

Six flaunts his flair for cinematic style and

meticulous attention to detail at Six & Sons,

the eye-catching concept store he opened

last December. From taxidermied animals

and gumball machines to archery supplies,

wearable sleeping bags, and sophisticated

unmentionables from Dutch lingerie brand

LoveStories, the mise-en-scène here is a win-

some collage of vintage and handcrafted

goods presented like pop-up art installations.

Don’t be fooled by the intricate nature of

the displays—everything here is for sale,

including all the furnishings in the second-

floor café. “It’s nice to see how a piece of fur-

niture can look in a real environment,” Six says.

“I’ve been telling visual stories for more than

10 years, and now I tell stories in the shop. It’s

a little hard to describe—we are just a little

department store selling beautiful and unique

products.”

Taking the spare approach favored at

Butcher’s Tears and Staring at Jacob to an

extreme is Vera van Stapele, the twentysome-

thing owner and head baker at Van Stapele

Koekmakerij. A psychology graduate with no

baking experience, van Stapele found herself

obsessing over a chocolate-chip cookie she

tasted while vacationing in London, so she

decided to recreate and improve it. Five

months of baking experiments and countless

batches of cookies later, she taste-tested the

winning recipe on friends and family, quit her

job, and last winter set up shop in a small space

previously occupied by an antiques store.

On the menu? Artisanal loose-leaf Kusmi

Tea, organic coffees from Amsterdam-based

importer Trabocca, van Stapele’s cookie—and

that’s it.

“I really liked the concept of a store with

just one thing,” she says. “If I had two ice cream

shops in front of me, and one was selling one

kind of flavor and the other was selling 20 fla-

vors, I would always go to the shop with one

flavor because I would think that it must be a

very good one.”

Baked for exactly nine minutes and cooled

for no less than15, the signature cookie is an

the details

amsTErDam aDDrEssEsButcher’s Tears 45 Karperweg; 31-65/390-9777; butchers-tears.comStaring at Jacob 215 Jakob van Lennepkade;31-20/223-7498; staringatjacob.tumblr.comSix & Sons 31 Haarlemmerdijk; 31-20/223-0092; sixandsons.comVan Stapele Koekmakerij Heisteeg 4, 31-65/424-1497;vanstapele.com

as for where to stay, considerThe Dylan (384 Keizersgracht;31-20/ 530–2010; dylanamsterdam .com; doublesfrom Us$360). set in the heartof amsterdam’s 17th-centurycity center, it has an ideal canal-side address, 40 stylishrooms and suites, a pleasantcourtyard garden, and a michelin-starred Frenchrestaurant, vinkeles.

capital assets The cozy interior of brunch spotStaring at Jacob, below. Bottom: Vera van Stapele’ssignature chocolate cookies.

amsterdam

northsea